New Boston Celtics head coach Brad Stevens reacts to a question during a news conference where he was introduced Friday at the NBA basketball team's training facility in Waltham, Mass.

That's all I could think of when I heard the Boston Celtics had hired Butler coach Brad Stevens to replace Doc Rivers as head coach.

Wow!

In many ways, I still have trouble comprehending this pairing.

In other ways, it makes perfect sense, that is, if you are Brad Stevens.

If you are the Celtics, I'm not so sure.

Let's take a look at this from the Brad Stevens viewpoint:

For starters, it's the Celtics. I don't care what anyone says, the Celtics are still and always will be one of the marquee franchises in basketball along with the Lakers and a handful of colleges.

Stevens is also receiving a nice bump in pay from what he made at Butler.

Speaking of which, Stevens is leaving Butler, not Duke. For some, the only thing they know of Butler is Hinkle Fieldhouse, where the Bulldogs play their home games. Hinkle was the site of the Indiana state high school championships in the film "Hoosiers."

Hinkle is definitely an iconic building in basketball.

But Butler, a private school located five miles north of downtown Indianapolis, is taking a huge step forward in competition next season as it has joined the Big East. I'm talking about the real Big East, joining mainstays Georgetown, St. John's, Marquette, Providence, Seton Hall, DePaul and Villanova, along with newcomers Xavier and Creighton.

While Hinkle may be an asset in the Horizon League, it easily becomes the second-worst venue in the Big East. Butler is in the process of raising funds to renovate Hinkle, but it's hard to compete with NBA arenas when recruiting.

Stevens did lead Butler to back-to-back NCAA championship game appearances, but is it realistic to expect him to actually lead Butler to a national title?

It has long been speculated Stevens' dream job was Indiana. That's why he has rejected past overtures, most recently UCLA. But Tom Crean isn't likely to depart IU anytime soon.

And Stevens is just 36 years old. So what if he flames out with the Celtics? The odds are stacked against him from having much success in Boston with the Celtics beginning a major rebuilding campaign.

Stevens went 166-49 in six seasons as Butler's head coach. It's likely he'll lose at least that many games in his rookie season with Boston.

If he does get fired after a couple of seasons, he'll still be less than 40 and a prime coaching candidate for any major college looking for a coach. He can follow the John Calipari and Rick Pitino path back to success in the college ranks.

Speaking of which, you would think the Celtics had learned their lesson from the Rick Pitino years.

That's why I'm not sold on this hire from the Celtics' viewpoint.

Yes, Stevens is a good coach. But he has no NBA experience. Pitino had been an assistant and a winning head coach in the NBA when he left Kentucky for the Celtics.

At the time, the Celtics were floundering and rebuilding. Pitino left the Celtics in worse shape than he inherited.

Perhaps Boston general manager Danny Ainge was looking for a young coach to follow in the mold of Miami's Erik Spoelstra, 42, or Indiana's Frank Vogel, 43. But both of them worked their way up the coaching ranks in the NBA, not the collegiate level.

This hiring is a classic case of the risk and reward principle - risky for the Celtics and a clear reward for Stevens.

---John Marcase is a former sports editor and assistant managing editor for The Town Talk and www.TheTownTalk.com.